A good archiving/library software for notes?

[christian0710]

Hi,
is there are good archive/library database software that enables me to archive and easily search for documents. The idea is regarding University: I would like to make a database of notes digitally for all semesters, but creating maps within maps on my desktop and clicking all those folders every time I want to save a word document just takes for too much time.
One thing that would be very nice, would be the ability to embed keywords to the document (fx the subjects that the document contains) so if you search for those keywords in a search engine it would find exactly that document.

I don’t know if I painted A clear picture of what I’m looking for ( I hope so), but I’d be glad to hear some suggestions.

 

[xk_id]

Hi,

I think I get a good feeling about what you're after. The best solutions I've found when I myself was looking for something like that, were:

1.http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/devonthink/devonthink-pro-office.html
2.Curio

with DEVONthink Pro Office being my preferred choice – it's an extremely powerful knowledge management software. By the way, I think what you're after is called "knowledge/document management software" (you may wish to use those keywords to look for more alternatives!)


xk_id

 

[christian0710]

Hi xk_id,

Thank you very much for your suggestions: DEVONthink is exactly the type of software I am thinking about and I'll add "the knowledge/document management software" to my vocabulary :)

 

[christian0710]

By the way, did you use other tools? like sketch tools for digital drawing? or did you scan most of your paper documents?

 

[xk_id]

I'm glad the suggestions were useful!

During lectures I actually have my iPad with me, and there I use an application called "Remarks" for taking notes. It allows me to annotate PDFs (which is usually the format in which lecturers distribute their lecture slides), record & embed audio within the PDF, and also sketch diagrams. I haven't used pen & paper at all this year.

Depending on what you're studying, Remarks may work more or less for you. And it has its strength, but its shortcomings too... I can share a bit of my experience with this app, if you are interested in getting it.

Overall I do have a very paperless library... The advantages are huge: being able to search documents, organise them, assign keywords, annotate, multi-media, etc.

By the way, I'm actually using DEVONthink almost entirely for stuff that is not related to school (school sucks!).

 

[christian0710]

I tried to install it from their website but it's a dmg file, perhaps I can't use it because my operating system is Windows 7?
Remarks sounds cool as well, I would love to record lecture audio together with their slides

 

[christian0710]

Yea I'm not to big a fan of school/university as well, but if there is anything I have to study it would be science, because it's interesting how we can use science and learn from nature.

 

[xk_id]

Oh I'm so sorry. It looks like it's for OS X only. I hope you can find an alternative for windows, tho; the idea behind it is not something revolutionary.

There are a couple of problems with recording audio and embedding it in the PDF. First, it may crash Remarks, due to the increase in file size. So it's advisable to make short recordings and save the PDF often. Second, it's a headache to play it back, because many pdf readers don't even recognise the audio; I have to use Acrobat Pro for it. And third, whatever reader you use (even Acrobat Pro), you won't be able to skim through the recording; again, this is a reason for making many short recordings and embed them throughout the PDF (one recording per lecture slide, for example).

I'm jealous of you studying sciences :) I'm doing some social sciencey/business degree with a pinch of computer science. My devonthink and spare time are full of science stuff, tho :)

 

[christian0710]

*Yea I'll have to look around :)
I'm going into biology next year, I wan't a job that allows me to be outside + in the lab, but definitely not 100% of the time in a lab.
Maybe study something you like more?